32 Facts About Cecilia Grierson

Cecilia Grierson was an Argentine physician, reformer, nurse educator, feminist and prominent Freethinker.

Cecilia Grierson had the distinction of being the first woman to receive a Medical Degree in Argentina.

Cecilia Grierson was born in Buenos Aires in 1859 to Jane Duffy, an Irish Catholic woman, and John Parish Robertson Grierson, a Scottish-Argentine Protestant.

Cecilia Grierson assisted her mother in managing a country school, and eventually taught there.

Cecilia Grierson was appointed by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as a teacher at a nearby boys' school, and after a bereavement of a dear friend, Grierson decided to study medicine.

Cecilia Grierson faced entrenched opposition to her enrollment in medical school in 1883, including a supposed requirement for Latin, which was only taught in certain boys schools, and she was asked to provide written justifications for her motivation to become a doctor.

Cecilia Grierson became seriously ill while in the fifth year of medical school and died in 1893 without a diploma.

Cecilia Grierson was an exceptional student, volunteering as an unpaid assistant at the university laboratory, and in 1885, beginning her internship under the auspices of the Public Health Department.

Cecilia Grierson organized an ambulance service while with the department, introducing the use of alarm bells, an innovation that until then had been exclusive to the fire brigade.

Cecilia Grierson introduced a course in massage therapy at the Faculty of Medicine, and later articulated her ideas in her textbook, Practical Massage.

Cecilia Grierson joined the staff at the important Hospital Rivadavia in 1888, and graduated in 1889 upon her successful defense of her thesis on gynecology: Histero-ovariotomias efectuadas en el Hospital de Mujeres desde 1883 a 1889.

Cecilia Grierson thus became the first woman in Argentina to earn a Medical Degree.

Cecilia Grierson joined the medical staff at Hospital San Roque upon graduation.

Cecilia Grierson offered classes in anatomy at the Academia de Bellas Artes, and provided free psychological and learning consultations for children with special needs, particularly blind and deaf mute children.

Cecilia Grierson finished her textbooks: La educacion del ciego, Cuidado del enfermo and Primer Tratado Nacional de Enfermeria.

Cecilia Grierson founded the first nursing school in Argentina, the Nursing School of the Hospital Britanico de Buenos Aires, in 1890.

Cecilia Grierson gave gymnastics lessons at the Faculty of Medicine and mentored the few other female students that had enrolled; one of these, Armandina Poggetti, in 1902 became the first woman in Argentina to earn a degree in Pharmacology.

Cecilia Grierson published Educacion tecnica de la mujer, introducing the study of day care in these schools.

Cecilia Grierson held teaching positions in the School of Fine Arts and the National Secondary School for Girls, where she taught from its inception in 1907.

The harassment Cecilia Grierson endured as a medical student and afterward helped make her a militant advocate for women's rights in Argentina.

Cecilia Grierson joined the recently established Socialist Party of Argentina, and became one of a relatively small number of Argentine women in academia or from high society who supported feminism and the women's emancipation movement that had developed in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Cecilia Grierson was named Vice President of the second meeting of the suffragist organization, the International Council of Women, held in London in 1889.

The bill was not passed nor was another measure drafted by Cecilia Grierson banning the white slave trade.

Some thirty university and professional women, including Cecilia Grierson, broke with the more conservative Catholic line in the CNM.

Cecilia Grierson presided over the First International Women's Conference, organized by the AMUA.

Cecilia Grierson was an active supporter of the Argentine Freethinkers Association, which advocated rationalism, anticlericalism, a scientific approach to life, and full equality for women.

Cecilia Grierson chaired the First International Feminist Conference of Argentina organized by the Association of University Women during the Argentine Centennial, in 1910.

Cecilia Grierson articulated her opposition to a turn to the right on the part of Argentine feminists in her 1910 treatise Decadencia del Consejo Nacional de Mujeres de la Republica Argentina.

Cecilia Grierson was publicly honored in 1914 on the occasion of the silver jubilee of her graduation, an homage repeated in 1916, when she retired from academia.

Cecilia Grierson lived in scenic Los Cocos, Cordoba Province, during her retirement, practicing family medicine on a largely pro bono basis and teaching.

Cecilia Grierson inaugurated a school in the rural town, as well as a residence for teachers and artists.

Cecilia Grierson was allowed credit for only a few years' service upon her retirement and received but a modest pension; she lamented most that she was never offered the position of Chair of her alma mater's Faculty of Medicine, which she attributed to misogyny, as a single woman.